Discussions On 'Almost'
by BarbedWire
Summary: After the events of Nightcaller Temple, Erandur and his new companion have a discussion about the will of gods, life and almost. Friendship between Dragonborn and Erandur.


**Author's Note: Hi everyone! This month marks the second anniversary of my fanfiction account and I really wanted to post something in honor of that, however, between school and mentally preparing for the original story I'm going to be attempting for NaNoWriMo this year, I didn't feel I had the time to properly write anything new. _This, _however, has been sitting nearly complete in the notes program on my phone for months, and it seemed like a good time to polish it up. This is a conversation that I imagine my Skyrim character, Amariel Field-Beaver having shortly after I completed the Nightcaller Temple quest in the game. Since I hadn't done much main quest line yet, Amariel does not know she is the Dragonborn yet. If it matters she is a Breton, but she has Dunmer heritage, because I tied her back into my Oblivion character. People do that, right?  
Erandur astonishes me every time I play by telling me more about himself, and I would not be at all surprised if he contradicts something that I have made him say. If this happens, I apologize but I refuse to read his Elder Scrolls Wiki page because I like learning about him everytime we go into a cave. Also, his relationship to Amariel is totally platonic.  
I do not own the Elder Scrolls.  
Drop me a review and let me know what you think:)**

"And that braggart named Ragnar was boastful no more, as his ugly red head rolled on the floor!"

The bard finished the tune for the fifth time that hour, though the raucous crowd in the Bannered Mare didn't seem to notice much. Ever since Amariel had arrived in Skyrim it seemed to her that the only thing she had heard was drunken chorus about the brave lass Matilda, and she wasn't impressed with its charm anymore.

Turning to face her grey skinned companion, the Breton finished off the bottle of Nord Mead clutched in her leather clad fingers. Whether from the quantities of alcohol she had consumed since taking her place by the fire, or from the sheer weight of it all she wanted to laugh at the great irony of her life.

She was supposed to be at the College of Winterhold right now, learning to use her Magicka abilities and understanding the origins of magic itself. That was what she had come to Skyrim to do, it's what her parents had sent gold for and finally consented to. She'd gotten close too, as close as Dawnstar even with the hiccup that the arrest and the Dragon burning Helgan caused she had been almost there.

And now she was here, sitting travel worn in the tavern in Whiterun with a Dark Elf Priest of Mara who called her 'my daughter.' She had never intended for any of this to happen, never intended to journey south again and not be headed home, she hadn't meant to get caught up in ancient prophecies and political turmoil and she certainly had not envisioned directly disobeying the orders of a Daedric Prince.

Spotting the redguard serving girl moving back around in their direction, Amariel suddenly felt hot and confined within the crowded room. Tossing a handful of septims that she didn't even recall where she'd found onto the table, she stood and called Erandur's attention to her.

"Let's get some air, yeah?" He nodded underneath his yellow hood, red eyes reflecting candlelight back at her.

They made their way out of the bar and out into the still night, a passing guard muttered something about sweetrolls, but she ignored him.

Without knowing where she was going, Amariel made her way across the cobbled streets of Whiterun straight to the guard tower, Erandur following at a polite distance.  
Drinking in the night air, she began to climb the ladder and at last emerged onto the landing of the tower.

She looked out over the landscape for a few moments, wondering why exactly the world had called her back through this place when she had not intended to come this way again. Her head felt suddenly heavy again and she fell into a guard's chair.

"You're drunk." Erandur observed watching her poorly balanced descent into the chair.

"A bit," she admitted. "But I don't think it matters." He eyed her quizzically, almost amused.

"So you like Whiterun?" She asked the dark elf without looking at him.

"It is a most interesting city. I've always wanted to see it, but never managed."

"You don't travel much?"

"I joined the devotees of Vaermina when I was very young, and since then I have focused all my energies on the service of Mara. I did not allow myself much leisure time."

"You're pretty hard on yourself about all that."

"No matter what wrong they may have done, I still abandoned my friends to die. Veren was right when he said that."

The silence grew uncomfortably between them while Amariel fixed her gaze on the crooked seam of her gauntlets.

"She ordered me to kill you." She said suddenly, not knowing entirely where the words were coming from. "Vaermina did."

Erandur nodded solemnly. "I had thought she might."

"Weren't you afraid I'd do it?" At last she turned so that she was looking at him, and she found herself wanting him to explain everything. Why she had suddenly felt alone when he offered his aid, why it made her feel safe that he called her 'my daughter,' and why it was that she no longer understood her world at all.

"If I had been afraid of you, my daughter, I would not have allowed you to drink the torpor."

"I still needed you then," she pointed out.

"By that time I had already explained how we were to get past the barrier. You would have made yourself Vaermina's ally by destroying me, surely you knew that long before she asked you to kill me?"

Amariel looked back down at her hands. "I suppose I knew that."

Erandur nodded as though his point were made. "It was not Mara's will that you should kill me, and Mara's will will be done before Vaermina's."

"I don't know what the will for my life is anymore."

"Do any of us? I had intended to spend my days near the scene of my misspent youth, pleading forgiveness. But I could not have saved the people of Dawnstar without plunging back into my crimes. And I could not have returned to Nightcaller Temple if you had not walked into the tavern that night. I was premature in believing that Mara intended for me to live a quiet life of repentance."

"You think that this is what Mara intended for your life?"

"I am certain of it. Why else would you have walked into Dawnstar just as my frustration and uselessness to the people there was peaking? How providential that when as I was accepting my own fallibility and resigning myself to defeat you should come to speak with me."

Coincidence had never seemed providential to her. She might have reached Dawnstar anytime within a three day span; he could have easily still refused to accept what he had to do or could have already moved on. It was just coincidence that she happened to arrive that night; it was completely random.

"I almost didn't go to Dawnstar." She admitted, the ale spinning her head once more as she tried to train her eyes along every stitch of her gauntlets. "I only went because I decided I wanted to see Solitude before I went to Winterhold."

Even without looking at him, she could feel Erandur's gaze as he nodded solemnly at her.

"I almost did not leave Nightcaller Temple before the Miasma took me." He spoke quietly, as if the admission were not intended for her ears at all; but rather a desperate plea to the friends he had killed. She closed her eyes and could feel herself back in the Torpor hallucination, feel herself in his body.

"I have made my peace," He had told Veren and Thorak. "I am ready to die." Had he known then that it was a lie, or had that not happened until later, when the chance at life and escape had proven too much to resist?

"The things we almost do," he started again and when Amariel opened her eyes the world was again spinning. "Or almost don't do, have very little effect on the path of our lives." His red eyes met her blue ones and she felt ashamed of the admission that was certainly clearly written there; that she had almost been moved by Vaermina to kill him.

"Let's go to Falkreath." She announced after a moment's pause. "Have you ever been?"

Erandur shook his head, "But I have heard of its famous cemetery."

"Well then I think we should pay heed to it."

Smiling slightly Erandur held out a hand to her. She took it gratefully, finding that her balance was abysmal at the moment. As her fingers wrapped around his she was shocked by just how grey his skin and how starkly it stood against her rough brown leather gauntlets.

Her feet returned under her, and the shift in weight caused her to launch forward. But after a moment she steadied herself, and watched as Erandur pulled a torch from his pack and lit it, bringing forth a light that stung Amariel's drunk eyes.

"Shall we?"

The Dunmer smiled, the lines of his gaunt cheeks softening and his red eyes lightening. "Lead the way, my daughter."


End file.
